Off The Beaten Path

Last weekend the Hampton Cycles boys joined me out on one my favorite local rides. It was great to get them off Beach Road and show them what else is out there. The ride was just over 100km but it's one of the hardest 100km you'll experience. If you want to do some solid Ardennes power intervals through some stunning back road terrain in our own backyard, this is the place to go.

These cool, crisp autumn mornings with the low sunlight is the absolute best time of the year to ride. On the flip side, you guys in the Northern Hemisphere who are just coming into Spring shedding the layers – we’ll be very jealous of you in a month’s time.

Hopefully these photos will inspire you to get out there this weekend and explore some roads you’ve never seen before. Enjoy!

You can see the route we took below:

As a side note, I’ve been recommended by a number of people to try out a new web service called Strava as a way of logging GPS files and measuring yourself against others. I’m still getting familiar with navigating the features but so far so good. The defining feature with Strava is that it automatically identifies and categorizes your climbs and shows you leaderboards to see how you compare. You can also see your climb side-by-side with any other rider’s effort on the same climb so you know where you lost or gained ground relative to him/her.

It would be great to get more Aussie users on board so we can start comparing climbing times. If you’re interested in trying out Strava they’ve given me a bunch of free gift coupons valid for the rest of 2010 to give out. You can try your first 10 uploads out for free, but after that it’s normally a paid subscription service. Send me an email (cyclingtips at gmail dot com) if you want to continue with the service for 2010 for free. Sorry, Australians only this time around.

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VeloClub Insider is an exclusive membership that gains you first access to our best stories,
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that will connect you with a likeminded community of cycling enthusiasts.